(CASINO DI SAN MARCO)
_Via Cavour. No. 63._
Ottaviano de’ Medici, whose house adjoined the Orti Medicei, bought,
in order to obtain an exit into Via San Gallo, a house, courtyard and
loggia, from the Compagnia dei Tessitori di Drappi, an offset of the
Guild of Silk. The beautiful loggia in Via San Gallo, which Signor
Iodico del Badia attributes to Giuliano da San Gallo, was walled up,
but has recently been opened and well restored.[23] Ottaviano was held
in such high esteem by the Medici family that Clement VII. made him
administrator of all their property in Tuscany, and guardian of the
young Duchess Caterina, the orphan daughter of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino,
who afterwards became Queen of France. When Ippolito and Alessandro
de’ Medici were forced to fly the city in 1527, Ottaviano took up his
abode in the great Medici palace, in order to protect it from being
looted. With the accession of Alessandro his duties ceased as far as
the palace and the villas were concerned, but it was only when Cosimo
I. ascended the throne that he was called upon to hand over the vast
territorial possessions. He was found to be a debtor of 5,106 ducats,
and in payment of this sum he ceded to the Duke his house adjoining the
Orti Medicei.
When Francesco I. succeeded his father he commissioned Bernardo
Buontalenti to build him a palace in the Orti, where he had a chemical
laboratory and a furnace for smelting different metals in the hopes
of discovering how to make gold, and part of Ottaviano’s house was
incorporated with it. The Grand Duke left the palace to Don Antonio,
his supposed son by Bianca Cappello, and Ferdinando I. confirmed
the donation on the condition that he never married. Don Antonio
embellished the interior, and made a beautiful garden, which he
decorated with marble and bronze statues. He took a great interest
in printing and had a private press, and continued the chemical
experiments of the Grand Duke Francesco. Galileo was a friend of his,
and Count Pier Filippo Covoni, to whose pamphlets we are indebted for
the account of this palace, cites several of the Prince’s letters to
him.[24] After his death the Casino passed to the Cardinal Carlo de’
Medici, who employed Matteo Rosselli and other artists to fresco some
of the rooms which he filled with pictures. These were distributed
among the various galleries of Florence by his heir, Cosimo III.; the
statues and busts were sent to the gardens of Boboli, Petraja and
Castello, and the fine cabinets and tapestries were removed to the
Pitti palace. For many years the house remained empty; then it was used
as barracks for the bodyguard of the Grand Duke, and in 1846 it became
the custom house. During the few years that Florence was the capital
of United Italy, the Foreign Office was installed in the Casino, which
then assumed the more serious name of Palazzo del Buontalenti. It now
is the seat of the Court of Appeal, and of the Assize Court.